


All That Time We Were Buccaneers

by Dorinda



Category: Haven - Fandom
Genre: Alcohol, Flashbacks, Hand Jobs, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Kissing, M/M, Mind Control, Missing Scene, Pirates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-31
Updated: 2014-08-31
Packaged: 2018-02-15 13:30:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2230809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dorinda/pseuds/Dorinda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Duke has been mind-controlled into playing pirate, but Nathan is not playing. Duke is <em>not</em> a pirate, and neither is Nathan, dammit.</p><p>...not anymore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All That Time We Were Buccaneers

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Midorisakura (Calacious)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Calacious/gifts).



> Missing scene from 3x10, "Burned".

Duke was heavier than he looked. But Nathan was determined not to make a sound as he hoisted him up and carried him inside the Gull—because of Audrey, sure, he could admit that to himself. But because of Duke, too? That was ridiculous.

He wove between tables and into the back room, and gratefully set Duke down on a cot wedged next to a stack of boxes. There was a fuzzy afghan draped over the cot, and a throw pillow; he wondered how often Duke slept here. He couldn't see why, when there was such a comfortable boat waiting for him. Unless there were nights when Duke might've stayed here to keep a closer eye on Audrey, which Nathan didn't want to know about.

Instead, he busied himself by putting the pillow carefully under Duke's head, removing the head-scarf and eyepatch, and checking for blood in his tumbled hair. He instinctively laid one hand on Duke's forehead and then pulled it away. What good did that do anyone—the man who couldn't safely drink fresh coffee for fear of scalding himself, trying to check for the cold clamminess of shock. Useless.

If Duke didn't wake up again in the next thirty seconds, Nathan was calling an ambulance. That much he could do. He sat on an empty crate and stared at Duke's peaceful face—was he pale? Could he be bleeding internally? Had he fractured something important—had Nathan moved a broken vertebra or rib just enough to damage something irreparably?

How many seconds had it been?

It took a moment or two for him to realize that he was suddenly looking into Duke's eyes—Duke's _open_ eyes. 

"Hey," Nathan said.

No reply. And Nathan realized that Duke's eyes didn't look dazed, or embarrassed, or in any way vulnerable. Instead, dark and narrowed, they stared at him without any pity. Not giving one inch.

"You okay?"

Still nothing. Nathan looked him over one more time, as carefully as he could, and saw a thin line of blood oozing between two of the fingers of his left hand where it lay draped over his middle.

"Where's that coming from?" Nathan asked in a rush, grabbing for the hand. Could there have been some kind of abdominal wound somehow, had Duke landed on something when he fell that Nathan hadn't even noticed?

But there wasn't, and he hadn't. On the palm at the base of the second and third fingers was an ugly gash, dirty and partially clotted but still oozing blood. 

"How'd this happen?"

Duke still just stared through slitted eyes, and Nathan had had it. There were words for people who took a fall and lost the use of their words and their minds, and he was scared of every single one of them.

"All right, look: how many fingers am I holding up," Nathan said brusquely, lifting three. "And you better answer me, or I'm calling the ambulance and telling them I have a non-responsive head injury case."

Duke growled something under his breath that Nathan hardly understood.

"Yes?"

"I said," Duke snapped, louder, "ye'll get nary an answer from me, scurvy dog."

Well...he had technically answered. But it still sounded like his earlier "I'm fine"—right before falling unconscious—might have been premature. Unless he was just dicking around, which Nathan could not in all conscience rule out.

But, you know, whichever. At least he was talking. Nathan wiggled his raised fingers. "I appreciate your dedication to the role and all, but you wanna answer the question?" It felt good to ignore the worst of his worry for a second and fall back on the standard Crocker Frustration.

"I'll answer nothing from you," Duke snarled in the same low sing-song. "Bring on the thumbscrews, will ye, bring the red-hot pokers."

Nathan gave up on the fingers. "Look, will you just tell me if you're hurt? Or dizzy or something? If not, I can let you get back to your—whatever this is."

Duke glared at him. "Nay, ye'll get _nothing_ , not if ye feed me to the sharks and let the barnacles cover me bones."

"Oh, if only," Nathan said. "Duke, I mean it. Stop kidding around. You're—" He forced himself to relax and slouch back on his crate. "You'll scare Audrey."

But those eyes, so dark, darker than Nathan had ever seen them, remained cold and hard and steady on his. "Do. Your. Worst." 

Nathan looked at him more carefully. His pupils were the same size, his color looked good. But this wasn't funny, and it didn't seem to be very skillfully focused on making Nathan crazy in some specific way, which were two of Duke's favorite motives. Whatever had been going on with him under Ginger's mind-control, it still seemed to be happening.

"I'm not gonna hurt you," he said uncertainly. "You're safe. You're in the Gull."

"Safe," Duke sneered. "Boarded and piked, laid low, and me greatest enemy would swear I'm safe!"

"Hey," Nathan snapped. That had kind of stung, actually. "You _are_ safe, nobody's—nobody's _boarding_ you. Okay? And I'm not your—"

Well, wait. Was he? Was he now?

"—I'm not who you think I am," he said instead, ignoring the crumpled feeling in his stomach. "Don't you remember me?"

"Oh, aye, I know ye," Duke said at once. "And well I ought. Many's the time I've faced you over a cutlass by now. Many's the scar that bears the trace of your hand."

"Listen—uh, Cap'n Crocker. That's not me." But Duke still stared at him, silently unrelenting. "Guess I'm gonna have to get Audrey in here, see if she can get past whatever Ginger's done to you. Make sure you're in there somewhere, under the—" he shrugged helplessly— "the yo-ho-ho-and-a-bottle-of-rum."

But Duke didn't seem to find that amusing, or boring, or no-fun-anymore, or any of his other usual responses. He remained stiffly braced, his chin outthrust. "A man of honor would indeed grant me one last drink afore he sent me to my watery grave," he said.

Nathan sighed. What was pirate for "shut up about your watery grave"? He'd never picked that up, somehow. So instead he stepped out to the bar and snagged the first bottle of rum he saw.

...Which happened to be Captain Morgan. Terrific. He trudged back to the cot, bottle dangling from one hand and a glass from the other.

"You _would_ have to have some of this stuff around," he said as he splashed out a shot's worth and offered it to Duke. "What's it for, Bad College Memories night?"

Duke actually accepted the glass, but peered into it dubiously. "There wouldn't be poison in this grog, now would there, matey?"

"That's a matter of opinion." But Duke didn't seem comforted by that, so Nathan shrugged and took a swig straight from the bottle. He didn't feel the burn, as usual these days, but the spicy-sweet flavor came through okay—and it really did hark back to some college memories he would've been glad to forget.

"Aye, very well then," Duke said begrudgingly. "As long as I've seen it with me own eyes. Never let it be said that I was fool enough to trust ye." He drank the shot down without a wince.

"I, uh..." Nathan sat back down. "I don't think anyone would say that. Not lately." He instantly felt stupid, telling the truth to a cartoon pirate. Or to Duke, which would be even stupider.

But Duke—or this version of Duke, anyway—wasn't laughing. He was eyeing Nathan closely, up and down, long fingers wrapped around his empty glass. "If ye don't be here to poison me, nor to keelhaul me, what is it you want of me?"

"What, me? I just—" _wanted you to be okay_ "—mostly just want you to..." Nathan waved his hands around, the liquor sloshing in the bottle. "...not say keelhauling anymore." He couldn't remember what keelhauling even was, but he knew it must be pretty bad.

Duke silently held out his glass, not dignifying that with a reply. Nathan wondered if alcohol was contraindicated in cases of mind-control piracy, but tipped him another shot anyway. Duke only sipped this time, just a little, and the tip of his tongue traced the residue across his lower lip.

"Ye've chased me ship a long long time," he said at last, looking thoughtful. "Through wave and storm and hidden shoal, through maddest wind and thickest fog, through morning's red sky and black night's gale. 'Twas luck that caught me: luck of the devil's own devising. And now I'm at your sword's tip, dismasted and disarmed. So tell me..."

His voice trailed off, and he watched Nathan expectantly.

"Tell you _what_?"

Duke set his glass on the floor by the cot and reached out. For a moment Nathan thought he was going for the bottle, even though the glass still had half a shot's-worth in it—until Duke took his hand. Nathan stared at Duke's hand, at its size, the sticky blood showing between the fingers, wrapping around his own. He couldn't feel it, the smooth strength, the warmth he ( _remembered_ ) knew must be there. 

When he finally looked up at Duke, Duke was smiling slightly, and it was a more wicked and weary smile than the Disney pirate empire had ever dreamed of. "Now that ye have me in your sights and in your hands, whatever will you—"

"You fell off a _balcony_ , I was just making sure you hadn't split your—your wooden _leg_ open, I mean anyone would—"

"Whatever will you do with yourself now?" Duke finished, his strange faux-pirate accent somehow cutting through Nathan's attempt at a tirade and stopping him flat. 

Nathan stared at him. That was not what he had expected to hear, and he could almost feel the whirring of his mental wheels as the road fell right out from under them. He pulled away from Duke with one yank, and hardly realized he'd lifted the bottle again until his mouth sweetened with another sip.

"I should, uh..." He stood up abruptly and took a step backward. "Your hand. Let me get some..."

He went out to the bar, rummaged under the counter and in the cabinets, and ran water into an old but clean enamel bowl from a storage shelf. The water from the hot tap curled with vapor, and after a moment's indecision he added a little more from the cold.

"Here." He sat back down, setting the bowl carefully on the floor. "Test it. Tell me if it's too hot."

Watching him with heavy-lidded attention, Duke obediently swirled one finger in the water, making slow figure-eights. He shook his head.

"Okay," Nathan said, "let me fix this."

He was trying for his official voice now, the one he used with people in traffic collisions who were still recovering from the airbag's almighty whack in the face. But from Duke's long, lazy blink, it didn't seem to be working. He did offer his injured hand, though, relaxed and ironic like a predator who'd been taught to shake.

Nathan took hold of Duke's arm and laid it, unresisting, across his knees. He dampened a cloth in the bowl and, as gently as his condition would let him, began washing away the dirt and tiny splinters and drying blood.

"Sail away," Duke said, as if his conversation had never stopped. "That's what you'll do. Find yourself at the end of the chase and nearly break the back of your poor craft, throwing her into the wind to get away. And once I'm far enough ahead, racing for the horizon, it's into the pursuit ye'll go again."

He laughed, down in his chest, and coughed at the end of it. Nathan glanced up at him, and his blink this time was deliberate and slow; he glowed dangerously, both coiled and sleepy at once, like a resting tiger. "And to think that once ye called yourself a pirate," he continued. "Like me."

Looking into those shining dark eyes, Nathan felt the ominous power there, the banked strength. Every instinct he had sent him scrambling back away from the cliff, and he made himself shake his head in casual dismissal. 

"You're lucky I'm _not_ a pirate," he said as lightly as he could, bending again over Duke's palm, carefully washing the edges of the cut itself now. "I'd be splashing this with rum and telling you to bite a bullet."

Duke didn't respond, not to the words or the touch. His elegant, strong, long-fingered hand lay relaxed in Nathan's lap.

The cut emerged more clearly, and it wasn't nearly as bad as Nathan had feared; it must hurt, ending in the sensitive web between the middle and ring fingers, but it was nothing serious. Nathan was sure that if he even tried to stick a band-aid over it (not easy, given how the cut was placed), Duke would make fun of him for days.

 _Duke_ would make fun of him for days. Nathan wasn't entirely sure what this man would do.

Concentrating hard on using only the lightest possible pressure—definitely a feat for his particular Trouble, and something he was never entirely sure how he managed—Nathan gave one last dab directly along the wound. A flinch jerked through Duke's hand, though he made no sound.

"Sorry," Nathan said at once. He didn't look up this time, only at the hand, wiping the last droplets of water from around the cut. But he couldn't fuss with it forever, so finally he schooled his face to immobility, dropped the cloth into the bowl, and sat up.

Duke was lying very still, eyes closed. Something in the center of Nathan's chest clenched and shattered in a fist of ice—the only cold he felt properly anymore, the spike of adrenaline and panic. 

"Hey." He lifted Duke's hand, patted it helplessly, leaned over him. "Wake up. Duke—!"

Suddenly, Duke's other hand was heavy on the back of his neck, holding him still, and Duke's eyes were open. He smiled slowly, the tiger showing its fangs. "Once," he said, "ye called yourself a pirate. Remember."

Nathan could have pulled away. He told himself that. He meant to. He watched the half-closed, knowing eyes, mesmerized.

"Remember when we served together," said the pirate captain. He looked at Nathan's face, down and up, hungry.

"Right," Nathan said. "Yeah, what, on our pirate ship?" But his voice betrayed him, suddenly hoarse.

Duke kissed him. Or whoever this was, he pulled Nathan hard by the back of the neck and took his mouth with easy authority. Nathan's eyes closed, despite himself.

"You do remember," came the whisper against his lips. He heard it, but couldn't feel it, and the frustration and sorrow rising in him was as strong as on the first day. 

He did remember.

Duke, his younger features somehow still unfinished but his eyes just as sparkling and smoldering and black. The bottle they'd passed between them, safe in the dark aboard the good ship Bronco. The skull-and-crossbones sticker Duke had presented as an ironic birthday gift, pasted onto the dash with all due ceremony. The hesitation, the half-formed expectation, the jokes in place of touches. Until Nathan looked over to see Duke slumped against his window, seeming pale in the shadows. And when Nathan moved awkwardly over to him, suddenly worried, that surprise hand on his neck and that laughing mouth on his own. And he'd opened to it, frightened. Glad. Feeling the heat running under Duke's skin and in his slick tongue, the soft scrabble of his hand in Nathan's jeans, the swell of his cock in Nathan's hand. The skin of his cock was so soft over that tight, needy core, Nathan couldn't get enough, his sensitive fingertips skimming the hardness and softness and danger and mysterious sweetness that was Duke to him. 

The skull and crossbones had grinned out at them, at the pirate companions, half-dressed and panting and at peace with each other. 

And Nathan remembered so well, too well, how it had been to touch Duke. To feel him. He couldn't help it, everything he had lost echoed in his lips on Duke's and his hand on Duke's wounded one. He kissed back as best he could with his eyes still closed, and grasped at what he could have: Duke's taste, the faint spice of the rum; his body's scent, warm and faintly salty like the harbor in the summer sun. But so much was still lost, the way they had lost so much else between them since then—the way that the joyful heat and giddiness had been torn away to leave a gaping wound, something empty and hollow and only poorly healed. Something they both inflicted, and kept on inflicting.

Duke spoke against his mouth. "Nathan."

They kissed again.

"Nathan?"

And the sound, the tone of his voice, suddenly pulled Nathan up as sharp and jarring as a leg-shackle. It was soft, and uncertain. Like a man waking up.

Like Duke, waking up. Coming out of the mind-control— _mind-control!_ — to find Nathan over him, half-draped on his body, holding his hand, mindlessly kissing him like some kind of—

Nathan scrambled backward so hard that the little crate tipped, and he flailed a moment before it thumped down again. He gasped for breath like a sprinter.

They stared at each other. 

Nathan rubbed hastily at his lips with one hand, and flinched at a faint taste there. He looked at his fingertips and saw little smears of blood. Blood from Duke's injured palm, with Numb Nathan grinding his fingers there, never even noticing.

"I'm sorry," he said helplessly. He dove for the cloth, wrung it out, and found himself unable to reach for Duke's hand again. So he just sat with the cloth in both fists, clenching tight.

Duke flexed his hand and looked at his injury thoughtfully, as if he hadn't quite seen it before.

"I didn't—I mean—" Nathan's mouth was so dry, and licking his lips didn't help. "Nothing else happened."

"Uhhhh-huh," Duke said, and gestured with his right hand, a curling flick of the fingers. Nathan handed him the cloth. "I know. I was there."

"But you were—"

"Yeah," Duke said brusquely, scrubbing the fresh blood from his palm. "I was. But it was also me, still."

Nathan wasn't sure if he felt better or worse about that. He watched Duke clean the wound back up, and suddenly remembered that he had been playing makeout with a pirate captain with Audrey right outside. He gave that a moment, waiting for the shame and horror that he figured he should feel. But strangely, all he felt about that thought was... safe. If he were to... if he had to kiss Duke, somehow Audrey being nearby made it seem... almost okay.

He put his head in his hands and clutched his hair.

"Nathan."

Nathan groaned a little and sat up to face the music. Duke was idly wrapping and unwrapping the cloth around his palm, and watching him.

"I'm sorry," Nathan said again. He didn't feel like the words could really carry the weight of meaning he needed, but they were all he had.

"I'm..." Duke considered. "Not?" He sounded surprised.

"You're not." Nathan blinked. "Wait. You're not?" He looked around the room as if some kind of explanation had been written on the walls. "Why the hell not?"

"Oh, god, Nathan, I don't know." Duke ran his good hand through his hair, shoving the long strands back out of his face. "I mean, who knows why the hell _anything_ today? You know?"

"No!" Nathan snapped. "I don't!"

They looked at each other a little more, glowering this time. It felt comfortable to fall back into this, but there was a small part of Nathan that felt guilty about just how comfortable. Maybe even a small part that was still curled up in that memory of the Bronco, and Duke's tender mouth and eager hands, and the sticker when it was still fresh and new. No matter what had come between them over all the years since, Nathan had never scraped the damn thing off. Never even been tempted. No matter how it alternately galled him and drew him, no matter that the memories it brought had such a fresh layer of bitter over the fading sweet. He could still feel the heat of Duke against him. Or at least he could remember it. 

Which wasn't the same thing. But it's what he had, and he tended to forget that it was what Duke had too. That there was something real before and beneath everything else, for both of them.

Duke turned his head restlessly on the throw pillow. He looked tired. "Here." He held out the cloth, limp and damp.

When Nathan reached for it, he braced up his courage and took hold of Duke's hand too. Gently, as gently he knew how, keeping his fingers away from the wound.

Duke didn't make a face, or a joke, even by implication. He just lay there and looked at Nathan, letting the moment stretch.

"I, uh. I may not be all that sorry either." Nathan looked down, squeezed Duke's hand carefully, and let it go.

Then he retrieved the bowl and the unused box of band-aids, went to the bar, and busied himself washing things out and putting them back where they belonged. Everything in its place, as neat and tidy as Duke always kept them. Like nothing had ever happened.

When he was done, he edged into the back room doorway and leaned diffidently against the frame. Duke was lying quietly, his hands on his stomach. At the sound of Nathan's return, he looked over.

"All right?" Nathan asked.

Duke shrugged loosely and yawned. "I should get back out there. We have to find out—"

"Sure," Nathan said, "but give it a minute. Get a little rest."

"Fine, fine," Duke grumbled. He pulled the fuzzy afghan awkwardly over his legs as if to say SEE I AM RESTING.

"For what it's worth, I think Ginger's safe now. To be around."

"Well," Duke said, "Audrey's immune."

"But Ginger listens to her, too. I don't think she's planning to do any more, uh..." He stuck his hands in his pockets. "Shivering of your timbers."

Duke rolled his eyes and gave a small, scoffing smile. He seemed as relieved to be back to normal—well, Haven-normal, big asterisk in the playbook there—as Nathan was. Nathan wondered if he also felt a little sad, or nostalgic. Or curious.

"Pfft, I'll shiver your timbers," Duke muttered in a quiet mock-threat. But it also had a husky edge to it that gave Nathan a sudden frisson. He meant to joke back, but he couldn't think of anything. Nothing but the sound of Duke whispering against his mouth, the scent of him, the taste of that ridiculous rum on his tongue.

So he rolled his eyes in return, and left. But he still felt Duke's gaze on his back—and for a man who couldn't feel, it was strangely, comfortingly warm.

  


**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to sakana17 for all her help! And thanks to Killa for pointing out the worn old skull-and-crossbones sticker in the Bronco.
> 
> This episode has delightful gifts in it. Rescuer-Nathan has his hands all over Duke, and their little exchange by the truck at the end seems ordinary on paper but is whoah-slashy as acted and shot. (Thank you Charles Ardai! ♥) Gif example!: <http://adnirod.tumblr.com/post/37113675717/now-kiss>


End file.
